


Uncounted Scars

by cofax



Series: This is Not Wartime [13]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Apocafic, Multi, OT3, This is Not Wartime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-09
Updated: 2010-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 20:03:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>This isn't where she thought she'd be now: no rank, no children, no command.</i>  Set some time after the end of <i>A Dirty Wind</i>.  Posted September 2004.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncounted Scars

In the end, they settle for western Pennsylvania, not too far from Pittsburgh. The city received less damage than many, and Daniel insisted on proximity to at least _one_ world-class library. It worked out okay: they are close enough to the major transit lines for Teal'c to reach them fairly easily, but still quiet and hidden away. Jack has transferred his distrust of Russians to the media; not without reason, Sam has to admit. And the Russians pulled more than their weight when the time came.

 

Sam comes into the house through the back door, stopping to kick her sneakers off in the mud room. The workshed is sheltered from the wind but unheated, and she's nervous enough about fire not to have a space heater out there. If there were one to be had, anyway, or propane to fuel it. She feels the tight skin on her cheeks already loosening as she steps into the kitchen, narrowly avoiding a puddle where Bruno spilled his water again.

 

"Watch the --" Jack says from the stove, where something is sizzling in the big cast-iron frying pan. He glances over his shoulder and sees her mopping the spill up with the sleeve of Daniel's workshirt, left hanging on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. "Heh."

 

Sam shrugs and ruffles the hair on the back of Jack's head as she crosses the kitchen to the refrigerator. "Daniel adopted him, he gets to deal with the mess." She opens the fridge and stares into it. "That beer ready yet?"

 

"Nope," says Daniel from the doorway. He has a book closed over his index finger and an empty mug in the other. "Nuther week, probably."

 

Pouting never works on Daniel, but she tries it anyway as he comes in and puts his mug in the sink. He smiles unapologetically and taps a knuckle on the side of her neck. "Grease-monkey."

 

She grabs his hand and bites at the base of his thumb. "Geek," she mumbles around the skin, and lets him go. "Did you leave the house at all today?"

 

Daniel pulls her closer, drops his forehead against hers. His skin is warm, his eyes clear. He looks... happy. It's been harder for him than for Sam and Jack, she thinks: he doesn't talk about that first year of the war at all.

 

"Not once," announces Jack, his back still to them.

 

Daniel rolls his eyes. "Tattle-tale," he mutters, and kisses Sam thoroughly, left hand still holding his book up against her ribcage. He tastes like coffee, smells like woodsmoke and, faintly, of wet dog.

 

"Hey, none of that! I have cooking going on in here!"

 

"Oh, right," says Sam. "Because _you've_ never had sex in the kitchen."

 

Which is so blatantly untrue that Jack doesn't have a comeback other than, "Yeah, well. But you're _distracting_ me, dammit."

 

Sam tows Daniel across the kitchen and comes up behind Jack. His jeans hang low on his hipbones: they've all found it hard to put the weight back on that they lost during the war, between the still-scarce rations and the work rebuilding requires. Sam plasters herself against his back and nibbles the vertebra exposed above the collar of his shirt. "Sure that can't wait? Let's all get distracted togetherrrrrr . . . " She ends in a purr, tugging up his shirt and running her hands up his chest.

 

There's a weight against Sam's back: Daniel leans against her and hooks his fingers into Jack's beltloops. "C'mon, Jack..." His voice rumbles against Sam's neck, and she twitches her ass backwards. Daniel ignores her and tugs on Jack's pants, pulling them all backwards a step.

 

"Oh, fine," grumbles Jack, and turns the burner off. But the smile he can't hide creases the skin next to his eyes. Sam pulls him around and kisses him there, then slips out of the way for Daniel. She doesn't look back at them as she heads for the bedroom, pulling her sweater over her head as she goes.

 

This isn't where she thought she'd be now: no rank, no children, no command. Instead she has too many bitter losses, blood on her hands from friends and enemies alike, and a betrayal by her own people she can never overcome. This happiness she clutches to herself, to warm herself against the two of them, is no more than deserved. Jack, whom she found it frighteningly easy to stop calling "sir", and Daniel, alive in spite of all expectations, paid as high a price as she did: higher, maybe, in different ways.

 

They don't count their scars, but they touch them, in the darkness, so the losses will be remembered.

 

 

END


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